Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Get Back!

Sometimes themes just present themselves. A bevy of backs began with an e-mail from the photographer David Schoerner informing me he had recently started working on a series of photographs inspired by the 1988 painting "Betty" by Gerhard Richter. (That's Schoerner above and Richter below.) Then the next thing you know back views are popping up everywhere!

I find that the photographs of backs within a specific context are most successful. Casia Bromberg shows the back when the front is not able-- such as when lying face-down or being held by another. However, The Sartorialist's photo of two matching girls with two matching backs is compelling in formal terms.

In relation to this theme, you should see the film a one and a two (or yi yi in its original chinese). In it there is a young photographer who takes photos only of the backs of people's heads. He does it so he can show them what they look like from behind!

I love collections of photography with a theme – this reminds me of the collection MoMA had up for awhile of photographs in which the photographer's shadow appears:http://pacific-standard.blogspot.com/2008/06/shadow-knows.html

A great story, I also love an image by Leon Steele, winner of the 2000 Kobal award called Brendans Back. It is such a sensitive portrait and at the time caused a substantial debate about what actualy constitutes a Portrait, but I love it.(you can see it here http://www.johnkobal.org/image_popup.php?image=portrait_award/2000b)

"If only all blogs were as life-affirming and tender-hearted as that of gallerist James Danziger. Whether his focus falls on the work of an individual artist or a particular theme, The Year in Pictures is compulsive reading."